Principal Investigator
smjaeggi@uci.edu
949-824-5896
Susanne Jaeggi (read: /ˈyakee/) grew up in a tiny village 5,407 ft above sea level in the mountains of Switzerland. She found her way down to Bern, where she completed her Ph.D.s in Psychology and Neuroscience. She later moved to Ann Arbor to expand her horizon as a Post-Doc at the University of Michigan, before joining the Department of Psychology and the Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (NACS) at the University of Maryland as an Assistant Professor. She is now a Professor at the UCI School of Education where she directs the Working Memory and Plasticity Laboratory. She also has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Cognitive Sciences, and is a Fellow at the UCI Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. As a Cognitive Neuroscientist and Experimental Psychologist, she has a broad interest in general processes of working memory and related higher cognitive functions, and within that domain, the investigation of cognitive training and transfer is one of her current major foci of research. She strives to determine what training regimens and training conditions result in the best transfer effects, investigate the underlying neural and cognitive mechanisms, and finally, investigate for what populations and individuals cognitive training is most effective.
Co-Investigator
mbuschkuehl@mindresearch.org
Martin Buschkuehl’s main interest lies in cognitive training, especially working memory training where he looks at performance transfers of trained tasks to untrained ones. Besides behavioral investigations, he also looks into the neural aspects of such transfers as investigated by means of fMRI. He is interested in investigating the theoretical foundations of transfer but also in applied aspects of working memory training. In his work he not only focuses on healthy young adults, but also on old adults, typically developing children, and children diagnosed with ADHD. He is the Director for Education Research at the MIND Research Institute.
Project Scientist
apahor@uci.edu
Anja has a PhD in Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, with research experience from Slovenia, The Netherlands, and the UK. She is also a member of the UC Riverside Brain Game Center for Mental Fitness and Well-being. Her research interests involve understanding the mechanisms underlying higher-level cognitive functions, particularly memory and reasoning. She designs and implements working memory training studies, develops tests that are valid towards assessing potential learning effects, and analyses the data in order to understand which features of training lead to transfer effects.
Post-Doctoral Fellow, TL-1 Scholar UCI ICTS
jwau@uci.edu
Jacky Au was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and received his PhD from the Cognitive Sciences Department at UCI. His interests surround the nature and enhancement of brain plasticity, including the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and computerized training of targeted cognitive processes such as working memory. His current focus combines his two interests by evaluating the enhancement of cognitive training benefits using tDCS.
Post-Doctoral Fellow, CIHR and FRQ-S
dtullo@uci.edu
Domenico Tullo is a Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé postdoctoral fellow. He completed his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at McGill University Canada and a postdoctoral fellowship in Psychology at l’Université de Montréal. Domenico’s research is centered on developing and evaluating methodology to assess and train for neurodivergent populations and those with alternative learning preferences. This work aims to improve the quality of life for these individuals and fills a critical gap as these populations are typically underrepresented and underserved by research in the cognitive sciences.
Graduate Student
cheneh1@uci.edu
Ed is a doctoral student in the UCI School of Education specializing in math cognition. He’s interested in understanding the cognitive abilities that underly mathematical development with a particular focus on examining different working memory theories through dual-task experiments. He is also interested in using meta-analyses to investigate the causal impacts of various forms of cognitive training.
Graduate Student
mdahlin@uci.edu
Melissa Dahlin is a doctoral student in the School of Education, specializing in Human Development in Context and Education Policy and Social Context. She received a BA in History from UC Irvine and an MA in International Educational Development from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her professional experiences in teaching, policy, and research have informed her enthusiasm for all things early childhood. Melissa’s main research interests are how home numeracy environments shape children’s math trajectories, the connection between early learning programs and families, and early education workforce development.
Graduate Student
yif12@uci.edu
Yi Feng is a Ph.D. student at the School of Education in UCI. Her research interests are how to develop a personalized approach for children to improve working memory, as well as brain plasticity and flexibility by means of working memory training. Her educational background is in Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience.
Graduate Student
zhilingm@uci.edu
Zhiling is a Ph.D. student at the UCI School of Education, specializing in education policy in social context. She studies policies and programs that promote cognitive abilities and social skills to increase children’s success in school and in life. Zhiling received her Master’s in Public Policy from the Heller School of Brandeis University.
Graduate Student
ktelfer-radzat@uci.edu
Kimberly Telfer-Radzat is a doctoral candidate in the School of Education, specializing in the arts, learning, and how alternative educational practices can develop executive function skills. She received her BA in Fabric Design as a Wearable Art at UCSD and her California teaching credential at UCI before finding Waldorf education. She has taught 1st – 8th grade with a single cohort of students and is currently supporting the opening of a Waldorf charter school in Huntington Beach, CA. She became interested in a PhD after watching her class of students develop over 8 years at the Waldorf School of Orange County.
Graduate Student
rdvillar@uci.edu
Raymond Villareal is a PhD student in the School of Education with a specialization in Human Development in Context (HDiC). Raymond received his MEd and EdS in School Psychology from the College of William & Mary and his BA in Psychology and Social Behavior from the University of California Irvine. His research interests include the influences of trauma on executive functioning and motivation in marginalized populations, neuroplasticity and learning in students with prolonged exposure to trauma, and cognitive training in these individuals throughout the lifespan.
Graduate Student
mvodyany@uci.edu
Mariya Vodyanyk is a Ph.D. student in the School of Education at UCI. Her educational background is in Neurobiology, Psychology and Visual Art. Mariya is interested in studying cognitive processes underlying visual art practice and creating interventions that use similar principles to aid healthy development and aging. She has worked with different community groups to bring accessible art education and believes that an important factor of wellbeing is addressing social determinants of health such as access to education and community engagement.
Graduate Student
siruiw1@uci.edu
Sirui is a Ph.D. student at the UCI School of Education. His research interests focus on studying talent, expertise, and achievement from human development and individual differences perspectives. He identifies himself as a researcher in developmental and educational psychology. Sirui works with Dr. Susanne Jaeggi on research projects about successful aging.
Graduate Student
anweaver@uci.edu
Alexandria Weaver is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in the School of Education with a specialization in Human Development in Context (HDiC). Alexandria’s experience as a classical pianist at a performing and visual arts high school influenced her interests in learning and memory, as well as music’s effect on these areas. She plans to investigate the effects of cognitive training, specifically how skills acquired during musical training translate to other cognitive domains.
Graduate Student
jwoo6@uci.edu
Jenny Woo is a Ph.D. student in UC Irvine’s Education program specializing in social and emotional development. She studies learning environments and experiences that foster executive function and social-emotional skills to increase children’s success in school and in life. Jenny received her Master’s in Mind, Brain, and Education from Harvard University and MBA from UC Berkeley. She has worked in a myriad of human development roles as a human capital consultant, an executive coach in Fortune 500 companies, a Montessori school administrator, and a certified fitness trainer. Passionate about bridging research and practice, she developed 52 Essential Conversations, a social-emotional learning tool used by teachers, parents, and psychologists in 20+ countries.
Lab Manager
jsghil@uci.edu
Eunice Ghil received her B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She is interested in studying individual differences in working memory and executive functioning and plans to apply to graduate school in the future. In her free time, Eunice enjoys listening to podcasts, going on hikes, and reading crime novels.
Lab Manager
ariel.tan@uci.edu
Ariel received her B.S. in Psychology with Distinctions from UC San Diego and M.A. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from New York University. Her undergraduate honors thesis investigated the effect of hypersexualization of video game characters on female players’ self-regards. Her independent study at graduate school focused on the relationship between biculturalism and college adjustment for Chinese students. Before joining the WMP Lab, Ariel worked at different universities as a student affairs professional and volunteered at social cognition labs. Looking ahead, she hopes to pursue a Ph.D. program and to investigate culture and cognition with her interdisciplinary and international background.